


The Heart of a Pepper's Mysteries

by Fa-Nuit-Hen (cliffracerx)



Category: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Chimer, Fluff, Gen, House Dagoth, Morrowind, Sixth House, Telepathy, a bit about voryn's childhood, brotherly strife, first era, headcanons, kogoruhn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-07 19:22:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19856743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cliffracerx/pseuds/Fa-Nuit-Hen
Summary: In the days of the First Council, The High Councilor was frequently seen making a snack of the legendary kagouti-pepper, and he was known for incorporating these peppers in many of his favourite dishes. Fear came to outweigh the disdain with which many Chimer regarded House Dagoth, for the conclusion of many was that its Grandmaster was either masochistic and half-mad to enjoy such a dangerous delicacy, or that he was so well-versed in the magickal arts that he’d found a spell that rendered the effects of the pepper useless. Nobody, it seemed, could accept that Voryn simply enjoyed extremely spicy foods and was not particularly affected by them.This is the tale of Voryn's first encounter with the pepper, among other things.





	The Heart of a Pepper's Mysteries

It was another uneventful afternoon in the otherwise uneventful life the unassuming middlemost child of House Dagoth. People, he’d learned, tended to look toward ends and beginnings when it came to matters such as lineage--and they were quick to discount the value of that which lay in the center, right before their very noses. **  
**

At most, perhaps he’d stand to inherit the far-off clanstead on Vissamu on Gorne, where the apple-vineyards boomed plentifully all year ‘round. Nestled there, too, between the Pale Spires of Gorne was the Lyceum--but Tuerynul, who had already proved to be quite the obsessive librarian, could easily contest such a claim. The whole of the island had been named for Voryn’s ancestor, Goryr, brother to the great Velothi craftlord, witch-warrior and explorer Kitkal-a. Voryn noted that the only thing particularly consistent amid numerous revisions of the tale seemed to suggest that somehow, poor Goryr had been lost ‘twixt the treacherous waves of the Padomaic Ocean, and it was in his honor that Kitkal-a named the isle upon which he landed several weeks later.

At any rate, Odros seemed hell-bent on becoming Grandmaster, so it seemed rather unlikely that he’d deign to secure a place at Kogoruhn as an adult. Voryn kept up with his eldest brother as seldom as he saw him--and as seldom as others kept up with him. Though his house was accredited with being as enigmatic as it was tight-knit, of all his brothers, Voryn simply seemed to slip between the cracks.

Not that he was particularly perturbed by this. Voryn’s ability to exchange solitude for company with seamless ease was something that would remain with him for the rest of his life. He prided himself on this, the knowledge tucked securely behind a smug yet unassuming smile that Uthol and Gilvoth, in particular, would never achieve such a state given their quarrelsome natures. Attention (or a great longing for it) Voryn was sure, was both the cause and the fuel of that particular fire.

The best company of the siblings, he’d found, were the infant Araynys and the sisters Dagoth. When he’d first held Araynys shortly after his step-mother had given birth, he observed that the babe’s too-large eyes bore uncanny hints of sympathetic wisdom. Seldom did Araynys weep or make trouble--save for the occasions during which any infant might weep, when they were hungry, frightened or lonely.

The subdued sounds of brotherly strife echoing from several halls away had not failed to grace his ears. Their arguing, he was sure, was going to drive him straight into the Mad Corner if he didn't get out of there, and quickly. (Though generally prudent and obedient, like all children, he would occasionally take a notion of being contrary. When Voryn ventured to break the rules, his actions were generally of little harm or consequence. The same could not be said of Uthol, Gilvoth and Endus per their proclivity for physical altercations when things didn’t suit them, and poor Vemyn, who was always getting in trouble for what their cousins referred to as _"bedeviled ideas and clangfangled experiments."_ )

On this particular afternoon, the rising noise level combined with the increasingly oppressive atmosphere of the well-populated clanstead proved too much for both Voryn and Araynys to bear, although the two expressed their discomfort quite differently: Aranys through his shrieks and Voryn by clutching his head in a vain attempt to fend off a nasty migraine.

Both of them seemed eager to make an escape--and that is exactly what Voryn did. Though he knew that the youngest, being something at an end, would be easily missed, he found himself preparing the portable swaddle and the straps with which he’d secure it to his back, making sure to swipe a few extra woolen blankets as well. After all, nothing good came of infants exposed to the cold! 

Thankfully, things always warmed up considerably after the ash-sands around Kogoruhn bathed long enough in the afternoon sun.

Meanwhile, Araynys’s screams grew and grew, until they rang out nearly loudly enough to oust the song from its seat in the back of Voryn’s consciousness. Voryn frowned, for he loathed bitterly the sort of indifference with which his step-mother resigned his youngest brother to the servants’ care--and he quite nearly hated her for it, too. At least he cared enough to quiet the screaming!

"We're making our escape," Voryn murmured quietly, gently tweaking the infant's nose as he swaddled his brother. "For a few hours, at least. And I'd much prefer if you wouldn't tattle on me so loudly!”

Araynys’s anguished little cries soon became muted giggles, and the nature of his laughter seemed infectious, putting a genuine smile on Voryn’s face.

Once he was sure that nobody was looking, Voryn bolted out of the Hall of Maki--so named for his grandmother, Maki Half-Dwarven, the current Grandmistress (and one of the longest-lived Grandmistresses of their House. This was an honor, as never before had a Hall been named for its mortal inhabitant per their transient nature)--and toward the sprawling expanse of ash-dunes, which he followed until they met the igneous cliffsides. Often, these cliff-faces were riddled with holes which they owed to the biting of the wind, and cliff racers owed their name, at least in part, to these convenient nesting-places in turn. Though he was slight of build and swift on his feet, Voryn took great care not to move too quickly, lest he jostle poor Araynys about unnecessarily.

Voryn knew well not to get too close to the Black Cliffs of Kogoruhn, for the last thing he and the tiny, cooing bundle-of-brotherly-joy on his back (whose eyes happened to be well-protected by an extremely small pair of Dwemer surface-goggles) wanted was to encounter an angry racer matriarch with a bellyful of eggs!

The purpose for Voryn’s choice of locale lay with his chief fascination of late--the mysteries of ash-yams. He dug them up with his hands, as any proper Velothi farmer would do, eagerly scooping them out of their clumpy dwellings and utterly unfazed by the grayish-black stains which clung to his clothes in consequence. It was not as though he were out there, garbed in Maki’s finest silks while haphazardly digging for vegetables! (O, but he'd spotted her, clad in her finest brocade as she squatted down in the ash to dig for only-the-Three-knew-what!!)

The delicate filaments composing the ash yam's root-system looked suspiciously like little hairs, so the sight of an ash yam that happened to have a particularly complex root network was sure to send a ripple or two down Voryn's spine. Eerie though they were, Voryn found them utterly fascinating.

The ash-yams were particularly easy to spot by the way their unsightly, leafy little heads stuck up out of the ground as though peering at the world, silently announcing to passersby that they were ready to be harvested. As he scanned the area for more ash-yams, Voryn found what he sought beneath the shelter of two curiously-shaped rock formations. From most angles, it appeared as if Boethiah herself had come about one day and punched the side of the rock in frustration, giving its strange holed-out appearance. There came a point at which the rocks bound themselves to stout plateaus with dunes piled preciously atop several mealy, weathered boulders, whereupon they eventually yawned into the mouth of a cave.

Voryn knew well to avoid caves, which were liable to contain criminals, hostile beasts or perhaps the odd Daedroth or two seeking to mind its own sinister business, and he wasn’t about to go in there with his infant brother at his back. Araynys, meanwhile, cooed pleasantly behind him. He seemed happy to be along for the ride, as it were. He steered away from the cave, both out of cautious habit and captured curiosity, for he’d spotted something curious.

“Hum! What have we here?”

He approached the spiky, plantlike protrusion, observing it for a few seconds to ensure that it wasn’t some sort of hidden, dangerous horror lurking beneath the ash-sands. There came no movement and not a sound. Araynys, who was well-disposed to wailing at the presence of danger, betrayed no sign of alarm. The wind hummed its bittersweet tune against the well-worn surfaces of the Ashlands, and the quiet, far-off drums in the mountain remained unbroken. Voryn closed his eyes. Nothing crossed the mindhold, fueling his guess that there was nothing terribly intelligent nearby.

Upon ascertaining the relative safety of his investigation, Voryn knelt down and placed his hands on what he supposed was curious flora of some sort, giving it a good yank--but whatever it was didn’t seem keen on budging without a fight. However, young Dagoth Voryn was not of a House of those easily deterred. He continued yanking and pulling, effortborn grunts made louder with mounting frustration. Every now and then, the tricksome plant would budge, just a little, just enough to goad the poor fellow into yanking it more.

He decided that he’d uproot the damn thing then and there, even if it was his last deed in life (although, he reminded himself curtly, such profanity was unfit to fall from the lips of an elder brother in the presence of an infant!) The ash-sands abruptly yawned into a great but shallow hole before him and he fell forward, landing a few feet away, face-down, with a muffled groan.

Araynys let out a screech, seemingly in lieu of the words, "Are you okay?!" (That was as much as the nearly-year-old infant managed to convey through the mindhold.) Voryn was able to pick it out from the complex and somewhat turbulent mess of infant emotions, for all Dagoths were generally born with a curious mixture of telepathic and empathic ability. This was something attributed to Dwemer blood, carried by many sons and daughters of House Dagoth since before the Finding of the Red Scarabs.

“Just fine,” came Voryn’s muffled reply, coupled with something to the effect of, “Hah! Got it!” when he realized the presence of the weight in his hands.

Fine grains of ash-sand slipped between Voryn’s long fingers like silk, and for one distracted moment, he longed to scoop up the escaping sediment and squash it with his knuckles. To his mind, there had always been decidedly therapeutic about doing so. It was pleasantly cool from lying in the shade provided by a natural rock-arch.

Voryn turned his attention to his new prize, which was had a stout and slightly curved shape. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t an ash yam!

“It’s a pepper, I think,” he informed Araynys. “A pepper whose secrets are not easily given to most. Come! Let us bring this thing home and show it to Grandmother Maki. She’ll know what it is.”

Pridefully, Voryn and Araynys made their way into their grandmother’s chambers, where she reclined upon a curved bench smothered with cushions whose surfaces were embroidered with crisp, repetitive geometric Dwemeri designs interlocked with a series of rounded, organic shapes and thick hash-marks akin to those found on certain tribal banners throughout the Ashlands. All the way home, Voryn couldn’t help but notice the enticing scent of the pepper--although he hadn’t taken so much as a nibble, fearing that it may be poisonous or otherwise unfit to eat. 

“Ah…” Maki paused, squinting at Voryn. Having to keep track of so many offspring was no trifling task for the nearly eight-century-old Grandmistress. Her abnormally youthful appearance was somehow linked to her status as Grandmistress and her handling of the House scarabs, but Voryn didn't yet know how, and the depth of her brow-ridges served as a subtle hint of her true age.

“Voryn! What’ve you got there? Let’s see it!” He loved the way her extraordinarily long, grey-lacquered talons clicked together when she wiggled her hands, gesturing for him to reveal his find.

Without hesitation, Voryn presented her with the pepper with an inquiring tilt of the head. “I found this thing for you outside. I do not know what it is, and I was hoping that you could reveal some of its mysteries to m--”

She cut him off. “That’s a kagouti-pepper, boy. You’d better wash your hands!”

Voryn blinked. “But why?” Before he knew it, he was being dragged toward the washbasin.

Maki waggled her finger at him threateningly. “You didn’t feed the baby any, did you? And, I hope, you didn’t try to eat it!”

“I didn’t,” Voryn protested. “But is there something wrong with it?”

After a thorough hand-washing that saw the skin on Voryn’s hands achieve an exceptional level of redness, Maki relieved Voryn of Araynys, taking it upon herself to change him. When at last they settled down, Maki held the now-sleeping baby in her lap.

“Kagouti-peppers are very dangerous! Touch it, and touch your eyes, and you'll go blind. They’re some of the spiciest peppers on the face of Tamriel. Do you recall the legend?”

Voryn, being the well-educated creature that he was, knew well the legends associated with the pepper, and summarized it with ease. “Boethiah put the peppers in the ground for the Kagouti to eat, and to fight over, because they were incredibly stupid, lazy creatures who would do nothing otherwise. The spice of the pepper is what puts the fire in their aggression, yes--but grandmother, aren’t they incredibly rare?”

“Not rare, no. Just difficult to obtain.” Maki’s snakelike dreads wiggled as though alive as her eyes popped and she splayed her fingers dramatically to better impart upon him her message. “They pack a punch, child, and I mean it, so don’t eat one unless you fancy breathing fire like a dragon!”

After being supplied with that knowledge, Voryn narrowly escaped a scolding from his stepmother for stealing Araynys from his crib. While the servants were preparing dinner, he did as Maki instructed him to do and presented them with the pepper, an act that earned him many horrified stares. 

The pepper, he was told, had to be dried--a process which took several weeks at minimum. Voryn waited patiently, and eventually, his perseverance was rewarded with bite-sized chips of dried pepper and many a cautionary tale from the servants. 

Upon being sighted by Gilvoth and Uthol with the pepper-chips, Voryn began to wish he’d never bothered to embark upon his little adventure. He thought he’d never hear the end of how their stupid little brother couldn’t possibly hope to consume it. Uthol whispered, rather loudly, his notion that Voryn was too much of a coward to try it--and that was all it took. 

Voryn’s legs locked defiantly into place. “Uthol, Gilvoth...I’ll eat a piece if only to see the two of you choke on your words. I’m tired of your goading, and I do this on the condition that you will try some as well.” It certainly wasn't the first time he'd had to square off with the brotherly bully brigade!

“Hmph! _Deal_ ,” snorted Gilvoth.

Voryn furrowed his brow, reaching into the bowl to select a fair-sized pepper chip. He was slow about popping the pepper-chip into his mouth, and slower still about chewing it, because he loved well the tortured looks of anticipation on their faces. He might as well milk it up for all it was worth since they’d started it!

To the bullying duo’s dismay, Voryn betrayed no signs of distress or discomfort. When he finished eating the piece, he smiled. “It’s good.”

“We’ll see about _that!”_ Uthol snatched the bowl from Voryn angrily, his nostrils flaring like the selfsame beast for which the pepper was named. Not to be outdone, he took the largest piece he could find and chewed it ferociously--and Gilvoth took an even larger piece and did the same.

_Wait for it._

“What’s the matter?” Voryn asked, feigning politeness in the face of their plight, but by that time it was too late. A few seconds passed before they began to scream and run toward the kitchen, their faces reddening and their eyes watering, leaving their younger brother in the hallway, unfazed.

* * *

Outside of Kogoruhn, an ash slave wandered about until they knelt down beside a curious, spiky cluster of tendril-like leaves that stuck out of the ash-dune at an odd angle. Not wasting time to paw at the area around the vegetable, they plucked the pepper from the ash with ease afforded by their unnatural strength.

“You are a fine thing,” sang the ash slave in stone-grey tones. “You do not make much noise, and are not quarrelsome like the others. Yes, yes...we shall take you to our clanstead! There is to be a great feast tonight, indeed, yes...mmm...so much to do, very busy, very _loud!_ A feast, perfectly positioned. Everything must be in readiness. After so long, Lord Nerevar will be paying Kogoruhn a visit....”


End file.
